Spending on Mexico's Maya train soars

Mexican tourism ministry Sectur saw current and investment expenditures more than double in the first five months as spending on the construction of the US$8bn Maya train project ramped up. 

Spending from January to May reached 12.2bn pesos (US$610mn), according to a May economic situation report from the government.

It represented a 205% year-on-year jump and was the largest spending increase seen at any ministry in the federal government in that period.

The surge also reflects the nearly seven-fold increase in Sectur’s budget, a necessary expansion to carry out development on the Maya train. The project is being overseen and tendered by tourism development fund Fonatur, which forms part of the ministry.

According to the May report, Sectur's spending in the January-May period rose to almost 12.2bn pesos from 3.81bn before the multi-stretch train project.

According to the expenditure portion of the 2021 budget, Sectur has been assigned 38.6bn pesos this year of which 94% is earmarked for the Maya train via Fonatur.  

The Maya train is effectively the only tourism-focused investment project underway this year, accounting for 98% of the ministry’s investment spending. Maintenance-related spending on tourism infrastructure amounts to 795mn pesos.  

“Sectur has to implement public policies that in the first place promote tourism, but it also has the mission of raising the quality of tourism services,” said Christopher Cernichiaro Reyna, coordinator of local public finances at economy and budget-focused think tank CIEP, in comments to Mexican media outlet Expansion. 

Looking at how much of current spending is going to the massive train project, he said: “Perhaps there’s a tourism project in the north that doesn’t have funding and the opportunity cost of giving those funds to the Maya train is that other projects cannot meet those objectives.” 

The neglect of other projects is occurring during the worst crisis that Mexico’s tourism sector has ever endured with travel to the country just now beginning to pick up, a year and half into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tourism GDP fell nearly 28% in 2020, with formal job losses in the sector estimated at close to 800,000.

The finance ministry’s preliminary estimation of next year’s budget – released in late March – contemplates 49bn pesos for Sectur’s mass passenger transport projects. The amount represents an increase of 35% compared to this year and most of the funds are almost certain to go to the Maya train.